• 𝔄𝔩𝔩𝔞𝔫@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    30
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m amused at these statements these ‘wannabe’ pirates make to justify piracy. A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know or justifying it.

    I know why I do it & I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.

      • TommySalami@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Theres some truth to this, but a lot of people do use this as a shield against the general cultural acceptance that piracy is stealing or otherwise morally underhanded. I do it, but I don’t have any illusion I’m one of the activists. I just get indignant and refuse to pay someone for content or entertainment who I think is damaging to the medium or predatory in general. I feel like if I really wanted to make a statement, I just wouldn’t consume their work at all – but life is short and I want to have my cake and eat it too.

        • Cabrio@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          It’s possible to do both, I consume plenty of pirated media simply because it’s unavailable due to pathetic capitalist imposed digital distribution limitations and lack of equitable paid access.

          I also consume other pirated media because I wouldn’t spend my resources for access because I don’t yet know the value of the content and won’t pay just for an opportunity to be disappointed, been there enough times to have learned that lesson. I’m happy to spend my time to find out your media sucks, but not my money, because that’s also my time with the addition that I’ve put actual effort into converting it into fungible assets.

          I also deliberately pirate media that I would pay for and do understand the value of, both because I can’t always afford to purchase said product from a company making billions of dollars in exploitative corporate profits and because I have no interest in caring about that over my own personal satisfaction in life.

          • FactorSD@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            Wouldn’t it achieve more to boycott things instead? If you won’t even give up watching a tv show, you aren’t an activist you are just complaining on the internet.

    • quirzle@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.

      No, you just need everyone to know you don’t care about sounding/looking cool to sound/look cool. Totally different.

    • Compactor9679@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      “A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know” While posting “I do it & I don’t want some validation…”

      • Cabrio@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Hypocrisy doesn’t make them incorrect. If you’re going to be a pedant get better at it.

    • Goob@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think some still feel some level of guilt about it and naturally, whether consciously or subconsciously, rationalize it with ideas like this. I guess the progression from that is posting about it to show that “yes I pirate, but I’m not a bad person because rationalization”.

      • Uriel-238@lemmy.fmhy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Pirating is like church sins, less about avoiding causing harm and more about preserving hierarchy and tradition, even though abuses and theft by intellectual property holders cause way more harm and economic cost than infringement, by multiple orders of magnitude.

  • what@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Until we live in a world where people have equal access to information and essential technology piracy is a moral imperative.

    Should something which costs a few hours worth of work in the developed word cost three weeks worth of work in a less developed country, just to make a publishing company worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a few extra bucks? Of course not!

    Every other argument is a moot point to me. If I hadn’t pirated Photoshop and other software when I was a poor kid I wouldn’t have the six figure career I have today. The ultrarich steal from us every day in more ways than I can count. Maybe when they start being held accountable I will start caring about their bottom line.

  • LeHappStick@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    Here I am wondering why there is still a downvote button in the YouTube comments… it does nothing!

    • Poob@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      The same reason that a lot of crosswalks have fake buttons. So you feel like you have control.

          • faladorable@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            true, it definitely depends where you live. If you’re in the US then it’s definitely a case of most don’t work, because most elevators at this point have been made after 1990, but if you live somewhere else then it can definitely be a case of some, or even none

            but that said there definitely are functioning crosswalk buttons that work so being pedantic about some, most, etc, is irrelevant because as long as there are any that dont work its relevant to the topic

    • BeegYoshi@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Actually it’s worse than nothing. Youtube promotes comments based on engagement, so while only an upvote increases the tally, voting at all still makes it more visible.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The downvotes are still counted, just not displayed. You can re-enable it via browser extensions.

      • ultimate_question@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Pretty sure those extensions all use some sort of estimate methodology, the dislikes aren’t available via any apis or anything

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          some sort of estimate methodology

          Hey GPT4 watch this video and tell me what its ratio of likes to dislikes would be

          • ultimate_question@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            I’ve never used one myself but I’ve heard talk of various ones either A) taking the public (real) like number and extrapolating the dislikes based on an old like/dislike ratio available for the video from before the dislike removal (doesn’t work on new videos) or B) the extension includes a feature where the user can like/dislike the video within the extension and then the dislike number is extrapolated using the public (real) like number and the extension’s private like/dislike ratio. In either case the number is not connected to the “real” dislike count that YouTube would have access to internally

  • crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Do we really need excuses for pirating media?

    I pirate movies because I think digital access to them is overpriced, goes to the copyright holder instead of the creators, it’s convenient and most importantly because I can.

    I can’t pirate going to the cinema, nor can I afford to build my own, therefore I gladly pay to have a seat and enjoy a movie there.

    Edit: I thought this may be relevant to the movies example I gave. I don’t think movie studios, giving nothing back to society after massive profits are the ones we should debate the morals of stealing with.

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think this logic is silly.

    Employers don’t own you, so witholding wages for services you provided isn’t stealing. Getting a haircut and not paying isn’t stealing.

    I think the better justification is: rights holders make it a pain in the arse to access content affordably, so fuck you, just going to steal it.

    • mineapple@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      You’re only partly right. You example services. Of course it is not possible to own services. Piracy is only applicable to products. The point of the Twitter guy is, that companies intentionally stop selling their software etc. as products to sell you the same thing as a service, so that you cannot own it.

      • XenGi@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Not only that. Remember when Sony said that you don’t own the PS4 you bought for several hundred bucks but just purchased the right to use it as intended so you’re not allowed to tinker with it and for example install another operating system or figure out how their security works.

        That’s what is meant by buying is not owning anymore.

        I could go on about cars with subscriptions for heated seats that are already installed but not turned on etc.

  • Sentinian@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Can we not become subreddit by posting this shitty screenshots trying to justify our reasons? Just share your media and enjoy it.

    • _number8_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      what do you mean trying to justify? discussion of shitty anti consumer tactics in digital media is perfectly valid

      • Sentinian@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        A screenshot of some comment is not really discussion though. This is a pretty base level understanding of the concept, which is why I say it’s more cope then actual discussion.

        • denemdenem@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          This is one of the most popular posts this week here with more than 4 HUNDRED comments. I don’t know what you view as a discussion but I think this was a pretty successful attempt at creating one.

          • Sentinian@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            I will say this thread had way more discussion then I was expecting when I originally posted this. My point about the screenshot still stands, I would much prefer we discuss something new related to sharing media, instead of recycling the same discussion about why its justified to copyright infringe.

    • masquenox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I just want to point out to anyone who thinks this is a viable legal defence, It isn’t.

      Of course it isn’t. Copyright laws were written by the same kind of people who decided that corporations gets to “people.”

    • neo (he/him)@lemmy.comfysnug.space
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Legally speaking they’re not going after you solely for piracy pretty much ever, at least not in America, unless you’re making a profit from it.

  • snor10@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Our current system of copyright is flawed and only serves the interests of corporations.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      That’s my YouTube comment. You and so many others are making me feel like a badass. 😎

  • narshee@iusearchlinux.fyi
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    This is inaccurate. You are not buying it (the media), you are buying the right to stream it (as long as the seller provides the media as a stream). You don’t “buy” a movie unless you are paying for it’s ownership, which would be millions of dollars. For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM). And you generally don’t have a right be able to “buy” or have access to all media.

    But all that doesn’t automaticly make it amoral. this comment is gonna be downvoted to hell

    edit: There are probably gonna be more responces, so this will address everything else I have to say. What I wrote is how things are legally, more or less. I don’t like that either. I do consider piracy stealing (under current laws) and morally right. Stealing is just not that great term for digital stuff. Please don’t try to (uselessly) sway me and don’t infight

    • Kissaki@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM).

      I’d like to point out German law (maybe this expands to EU and other countries) with traditional media.

      Traditionally you bought movies and music on physical discs. You had a guaranteed right to be able to sell it to other people, as well as make personal copies of it for private use/backups.

      DRM has always tried to oppose this right. And obviously, in the last decade(s) a lot went into service-oriented streaming and temporary access instead of owning even on a partial or theoretical level.

    • Quetzacoatl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      this meme is a criticism of that. it shouldn’t be like that. if I buy a chair, I own the chair. I can then choose to sit on it, burn it, or give it to my neighbor, whatever. if I buy a movie, it’s suddenly not like that – but not because of some inherent quality that would make it impossible, but only because they say it is like that. but they have one weakness: it’s only like that if we actually stick to those rules. they’re all arbitrary anyway! we can therefore treat a bought movie just as it should be: a physical copy that we actually own. we can then decide to watch it, to lend it to our neighbor, to play it for everybody to see on the street, to cut it and remix it and do something new with it. will they come and claim we’ve “pirated” their media? yes of course, but this is nonsensical, dead law, that has to be broken again and again by just – ignoring it, and making it not so. if I buy a movie, I do own the movie, and the company that says otherwise can get fucked. that’s what this is about.

    • Melkor@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s kind of their point, because we are not in fact buying the media the argument is that piracy has some moral element. Put another way there is no option to own it outside of piracy.

  • Starchiver@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is what I’ve been saying. We don’t even own digital products, all it takes is a server to be taken down or an account to be lost and all you bought is taken away. Pirating also can’t be stealing because we aren’t taking something away from someone else, other people are not deprived of the chance to have this just because we downloaded it.

  • Gsus4@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Major reason not to buy ebooks from amazon: you can’t lend, give, exchange, sell them and you may lose all of them if you anger the right people. They are not yours, you are not buying them, you merely paid for conditioned access to them.

    • Uncle_Iroh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is some cope shit. We’re stealing, it’s not morally correct for most of us. No one cares enough to stop though, that includes me.